The start button is just something I quickly made in Photoshop a while back and reshacked into a modified Vista visual style. The default Vista VS doesn't look all that bad, but everything takes up to much valuable space IMHO. It's like Microsoft GUI designers wants to pad our monitors back to the dark ages of 1024x768, and I hate it. Thankfully you can improve the situation a bit with a HEX editor and Photoshop

I have a somewhat strange desktop background, made it during Media Tech one day while I was bored in Photoshop. Call it urban if you will. I just took brushes and kinda went insane for 45 minutes. There are seriously like 30 brushes there.

Other than the background, it is all simple, clean, and I have an idiot-proof start menu. Plus a 3D user image (thanks to 3DUserPic).

I have taken up using the HDR goodies from Flickr, for my desktop wallpapers and screensavers. Here it is a stunning Country Lake, 1255x855, 1.3MB, by Sergio Parisi- to be found at http://www.flickr.co...isiphoto/2673568895/

It is one of the most beautiful images I have ever seen; it somehow makes me longing...- kind of "how I wish my childhood had been..."

I have HDR rendering in my games, not sure if that is the same thing as what Curt mentioned, but if it is then I can also say that it makes a huge difference in the way images look. I have quite a few desktop wallpapers in my game screenshot collection that I use, and all of them have HDR lighting in them. You really notice the difference.

Also, an update to my desktop - I don't show icons much anymore due to my shoving programming stuff all over the desktop, so all I have is my ObjectDock Pro (awaiting the next version of CircleDock!) and the taskbar.

The background is an edited screenshot of my (favorite) game, Project Torque. I was drifting in my Subaru and decided to make an ad out of the thing based on the new TV commercials (I love the car, it really is fun to drive, regardless of being "simulated").

(The PNG was over 2.2 some odd MB, hence the JPG image format)

EDIT: That image does have HDR in it, although a bit hard to notice due to the effect wearing off with time (as to simulate the human eye adjusting to light).

I have never used the "desktop" in my whole digital life (which is over 16 years). As soon as when my computer starts windows, it is cluttered with windows and I never have any need to show desktop. So I have really nothing to show

I almost have a top music of the week type of section where I drag a few songs I like, or whatever's in my head that week so I can play them back in one click instead of singing them to myself like a loner. It's also a reminder of when I'm over a song since it's no longer on the desktop. Besides that, just a bunch of music production software and the recycling bin.

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